Bar Limina is raising the bar on what a Memphis cocktail establishment should be.
Slated to open in March at 631 Madison Avenue in the Edge District, the space will be “a really great cocktail bar,” says owner Josh Conley, 34. “It’s a technique-driven cocktail bar. Just really well executed cocktails. Some plays on classics.”
In addition to “really high standards of service and really great drinks,” Bar Limina will “feature bartenders from all over the world right in this space with relative frequency.”
He says, “It’s really great for our guests. It offers them this rotating concept: asking bartenders to come in and present an entirely different concept.”
Bar Limina has a lot in common with Conley’s Etowah Hunt Club dinner series. Etowah features at least four pop-up dinners a year, hosted by Conley and Cole Jeanes, chef/owner of Kinfolk Memphis and the upcoming Hard Times Deli. The seasonal dinners feature top chefs from around the country.
“People will want to be here to see what the next attraction is. Same thing with the Etowah dinner series. Just a great extension of that.”
The visiting bartenders, which could be 40 or so people a year, will include some who have been nominated for awards, including the prestigious James Beard Award.
Bar Limina also will feature its own staff of local bartenders, who can learn new techniques, recipes, and ingredients from the out-of-town bartenders. “That’s a lot of knowledge you just don’t get elsewhere,” Conley says. “We want to move the needle as to what Memphis does as a drinking city.”
The same concept is being done in other cities. “The idea of a guest shift at a bar is not an original idea. But doing it at this scale and with this frequency isn’t seen anywhere else.”
As for food, Conley says, “We don’t have a kitchen staff. Just small plates, cheese, charcuterie. That sort of thing. And some other fun things.”
They won’t feature live music inside the bar, which seats about 40 people. “It’s a pretty small place.”
But they have access to a small courtyard. “I can see live music being out there.”
The Bar Limina space was formerly occupied by Inkwell. “We’re in the process of redoing the aesthetics of the space and making it feel like our own.”
It will be “really bright and airy” with a lot of plants. “We’ve got those incredible terrazzo floors that are original to the building.”
The rooms, including the bathroom, feature colorful, intricate tile patterns. “This space originally was a tile showroom, so all the tile through the entire place is wild.”
Colors include “light blues, creamy white, mustard yellow, olive,” he says. The front of the bar, which seats 12, has a black quartz top “with this ox blood enamel finish on the front.”
“I’ll be bringing in some more wood elements to warm it up a little,” Conley says. “We’ve got some early classic leather bar stools. We’ve got light white marble cafe tables.”
And “a great U-shaped leather booth sits back in the corner.”
Art work will include a 12-foot-wide piece of original art by Kyle Taylor behind the bar.
Their neighbors include Ugly Art Co., JEM restaurant, Rootstock Wine Merchants, and the upcoming Hard Times Deli. “There’s a lot of really good synergy in the neighborhood right now.”
Conley, who is from Northeast Arkansas, is a professional bartender, who has worked “in and out of bars. I’ve been around the industry.”
He “instantly gravitated” to the craft cocktail movement. “It was just something I got enamored with, and I made a lot of friends who worked in bars, or worked in coffee.”
“I really mostly learned on my own time,” he says. “It’s my hobby.”
Asked to name his favorite cocktail, Conley says, “I go through phases.”
If he only had one cocktail to drink for the rest of his life it would be a “cocktail à la Louisiane,” which he describes as a “Sazerac and Manhattan mash-up.”
But, Conley says, “I usually drink martinis at home. Gin. Always gin.”